UN Completion and Final Four
I've run tests and with one GE, it will actually take 3 turns to build the UN. In my previous testing, I was running Organized Religion. Since we have to stay in Theocracy, we'll have to forego the extra 25% hammers, which will add 1 turn to build the UN.
Three turns is already really great! So, basically, it sounds like we will save one of our Great Engineers to be one of our Final 4 Great People.
That means that we won't need a Great General, as we'll have:
1. A Scientist that UT will drop off out of Galleon 1
2. One of our 2 Great Engineers
3. A Great Person coming from Delhi in 2 turns. UT can just fortify him in Delhi, to "hang out" with the Great Engineers that are already Fortified there.
4. A Great Person coming from Crabs in however many turns--15 turns you said.
Chinook
One suggestion on the war plans. I think it's better to throw everything we have at Chinook.
So, I suggest that we send the first 6 troops to the tile 1W of Chinook via galleon (no chaining required). The galleons can circle back and pick up the rest of our army if it looks like we'll need them to take and hold the city.
Well, in that case, we might as well plan to send all 4 units that are near Toledo to the north-west immediately, as a stack of 4 units (i.e. meeting up on the GH Gem Mine on T269).
Forget Toledo for those 4 units, since, as you say, we'll have a Great Engineer and thus won't need to generate a Great General.
The 4 units near Toledo can board the 2 Galleons (Galleons 2 and 4) somewhere along the Coast to the north-west of Cordoba. That is, after Galleons 2 and 4 drop our army off next to Chinook.
And, as you say, we might as well just send the units next to Chinook, since we'll have 6 of them. That way, UT can immediately begin sieging the City with our Trebuchet. 1W of Chinook looks like a good choice for a landing spot, as it won't be on a Road of Mehmed's, making it harder for him to counter-attack our stack of units. Plus, it's a bit out of the way, so his counter-attacking units will have to really travel far before they can attack us.
... need to take it quickly so that it is out of revolt and we have defensive units in the city and on the Silk resource by the time the UN diplo vote comes up.
Since we don't care about generating a Great General, and we don't care about capturing a City from Mehmed in order to build The UN, it doesn't hurt to throw an overkill amount of units at Chinook. This way, Chinook should be captured in time for it to come out of revolt. It also means that we'll have enough units to park some units on a Silk Resource, to prevent them from all being pillaged on us and thus ruining our victory.
The 2 Macemen and the 1 Horse Archer backup
We can still aim to send these units to support those at Chinook. The more units at Chinook, the merrier.
Units from the Barb Area
Okay, so that makes me think that we should pick up 3 Macemen from the Barb Area and leave the Catapults for the second round of pickup.
We might as well use the 3 Macemen to defend the GH Jungle square 1S of Todelo. That way, Isabella won't get overrun by Mehmed's forces and we won't have Isabella having to declare war on us (by becoming Mehmed's vassal) just for her to stay alive in the game.
Airships can still eventually come, but they are less of a priority.
Which leads me to the next point:
I think that the faster that we can learn Mass Media, the better off that we will be.
Hiring Scientists across the Nation
So, I would suggest that we hire Scientists just about everywhere.
The "rule of thumb" would be to work our Gold Resources, our Silver Reources, but otherwise, hire Scientists anywhere else that we can do so.
I would say that we would hire Scientists in Cities such that the Cities will not shrink within UT's turnset. So, as long as the Cities will not shrink for 9 turns or more, it's okay to hire the Scientists. It's actually good to "eat up" the Food in our Foodboxes this way, as it doesn't look like we'll need our own population to be large in order to win the Secretary General vote.
Winning the Diplo Vote should be even easier, since we'll have Toku able to vote for us.
Let me give a couple of examples:
Delhi: We don't want to change the citizen allocation here, as we're already low on Food in our Foodbox.
Silverado: We can turn 5 Coast squares into Scientists. We can turn 1 GIrr square into a Scientist. The City will shrink in 9 turns, which will happen after UT's turnset, so we're good to go here.
Riverdale: We want to keep growing this City, so we won't hire any more Scientists here.
You know what? I might as well just list all Cities.
Bedrock: Click on the Hire Scientist plus icon "+" six times. That'll switch a Priest, and Engineer, a PMarble, a aPRiv Irr, a GHWind, and a GRiver Horse into 6 Scientists. You can probably then manually switch one of the GRiv Irr squares to the GRiv Horse square, sinec the Horse is a pretty good square to work. We'll shrink in 12 turns if we work the GRiv Irr square or 10 turns if we work the GRiv Horse square, both of which are above our limit of 9 or more turns to shrink.
Wheaties: We don't need that Airship so badly, do we? Click on the Hire Scientist icon 6 times and we'll turn 2 PH Mines and 4 PIrr squares into 6 Scientists. We'll shrink in 12 turns.
Grt Person Farm: We don't want to change the citizen allocation here.
Risaia: Hire 2 Scientists, which uses up a PRiv Irr square and a GIrr square. We'll shrink in 14 turns.
Crabs: We don't want to change the citizen allocation here.
Three Clams: We don't want to change the citizen allocation here.
Sugar Daddy: Hire 4 Scientists, using up our Engineer and 3 GH Mines. We'll shrink in 15 turns.
Goldfish: Manually switch an Artist to a Scientist and a Coast to a Scientist. Make sure that we're still working the Fish and 2 Gold Resources, as those Gold Resources will help to keep us from losing too much Gold per Turn. We'll shrink in 11 turns.
Ivory Towers: Click on the Hire Scientist icon 8 times. The only 3 squares that our citizens will work are the NW + W Fish, the S + S Clam, and the S GIvory Camp. We will shrink in 9 turns.
Mystic: Click on the Hire Scientist icon 5 times. We'll convert an Engineer and 4 Coast squares into Scientists. We will shrink in 20 turns.
DevilsGate: You might as well leave this City's citizens to be "auto assigned" by the City Govern. It'll help to work its matured Cottages, while Hiring Scientists here isn't amazingly lucrative, as we have no Science-multiplying buildings.
Zhou: Probably the same thing as DevilsGate: make it easy on yourself and just let the City Governor do its magic.
This way, we'll get Mass Media in 11 turns instead of 18 turns!!! WOW! It will be up to Mitchum to fix the Cities from shrinking population points, so you can comfortably pass him off a bunch of almost-starving Cities and let him deal with that situation!
Remember that if you collect 600 Gold, you can run a turn of 100% Science. So, should that happen, we might even be able to get Mass Media in less than 11 turns! 11 turns will already be really great, though!
